


The Way

by Jackie Thomas (Jackie_Thomas)



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: I've no idea how this happened, M/M, Midnight Addiction, Minor character illness and death, Prequel to Entry Wounds but goes AU, Spoilers for Counter Culture Blues & Entry Wounds, Sweary rockers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-06
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-28 09:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2727269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jackie_Thomas/pseuds/Jackie%20Thomas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn't a pilgrimage</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way

He sailed from Calais at first light. A choppy crossing; sour, petrol stained air, espressos to settle his stomach. It wasn’t a pilgrimage. More an undignified exit, a spectacular sulk, an excessively long walk.

There was relief to be found in turning tail and running, but he stands now outside a Vauxhall bar, under London’s pewter sky, beside the whispering Thames. The bar is a cellar and the music from downstairs is pared to a thumping bass note; the sound of Vauxhall’s beating heart. The queue outside is all male and if he goes inside he won’t come out alone.

His purpose dissolves with every passing moment; his last plan and he has squandered his meagre stock of intention. His feet are tougher than they have ever been; sole hardened and callused against blisters, his boots a second, easier fitting skin. But they refuse to carry him. 

He has breathed the brittle air of the Pyrenees, hiked through green villages, along vineyard pathways, across scorched Galicia. He has followed the symbol of the scallop shell but it was no pilgrimage. He did not climb the medieval street to the Cathedral, did not claim plenary indulgence. He will pay the full price for all his sins.

“Sergeant Hathaway?” 

He turns to see a tall, lean man in his late sixties. He is dressed all in black and wearing a jet earring. 

“Mr Corso.”

“That’s Franco to you.” He glances at the bar James had been failing to enter and then back at him, mild curiosity sparking in his eyes. “I owe you a drink, at least. Not there.”

The guitarist of the third greatest progressive rock band rests a hand on his shoulder and hails a cab. The driver mutters, ‘Bugger me’ and takes them to an address just across the river in Pimlico.

“No charge to you, sir,” the cabbie says. Perhaps he met his wife at a Midnight’s gig too.

The tall Georgian terraced house is not James’ idea of a rock star’s home. Cut flowers are displayed on the hall table, the walls are an anthology of twentieth century art, the rugs are hand woven and the turned balustrades are polished oak.

The room he follows Franco into is a bit more like it. Whoever is responsible for the perfection of the rest of the house steers clear here. It is cluttered with guitars and mandolins, piano and keyboards, sound system and towers of books. Albums and CDs line the shelves and on the wall, Midnight Addiction gaze out from framed posters and from prints by Bailey and Avedon. Esme Ford, top hat, no bra. Richie Maguire, duster coat, six shooter. Franco Corso, a beautiful twenty five year old astride a Harley.

Franco pours two shots from a bottle of whisky and hands one to James, waving him into one of the leather sofas. Something in the way he holds the bottle alerts James; a careful precision. As if it is an effort to keep his hand steady. 

“Did I ever thank you for saving my life?” Franco asks. “You jumped into a cesspit full of knives. Fucking Vernon Oxe.”

“How long did it take you to feel clean again?” 

“I’m not sure I ever did.” He smiles, “Richie named the Macerator after you, did you know? He calls it the Sergeant’s Swamp.” He notices James’ appalled expression, “Out of love, man, out of love.”

There is a guitar, a classic sixties Gibson, leaning against the sofa, already hooked up to an amp. He can’t resist, “Do you mind if I try it. I’ve been away, I had to leave mine behind.”

“Yeah, go on. Where’ve you been?”

“France and Spain, walking.”

“I like to walk, not that I get far these days.”

James finds a plectrum on the coffee table and tries out chords, getting a feel for the instrument, finding a melody. This is one of the few things he’s missed; the smooth bend and bow of a guitar, responding like a living animal to his touch.

Franco listens for a minute before reaching for another guitar; the custom Fender he uses on stage. He gets it plugged in and tuned and, at first, follows his lead. When, as tends to happen, James veers from twelve bar blues into something more classical Franco picks up on this too, riffing on it, giving the tune a ragged, ethereal feel until James just stops and listens, knowing when he is outclassed. Then Franco stops too, to roll and light a joint. He offers it to James, who refuses.

“Sorry, Sarge,” he says, but carries on smoking. He is regarding him with interest. “A queer policeman, then?”

James feels himself blushing, “I’m not a policeman anymore.”

“You didn’t get the elbow, did you? Do you want me to phone the Commissioner? Do I mean Commissioner? Or am I thinking of Gotham City?”

“You’re all right, I resigned.”

“Yeah? I don’t get it, you and Inspector Lewis were the bollocks.”

That name, out of nowhere, stops him short. On this journey there was to be no smoking, no phone and no Lewis (the no alcohol pledge lasted forty five minutes). But he did smoke two – memorable - cigarettes in O Pino, a village twenty kilometres from Santiago de Compostela and he did charge his phone in the hotel before he went out this evening. So it must be time for Robbie Lewis to make his presence felt.

“What did I say?” Franco asks. “He’s not dead or anything is he?” 

“He retired.”

He gets it, embarrassingly quickly, “And you left. That’s an actual romance. I’ll name this tune the Ballad of Lewis and Hathaway.”

He starts playing again, infusing the piece with minor chords, weighing it down with melancholy and yearning. Franco is just having fun but this is what he could always do with his guitar; use it to open up a heart and dissect it. It is not an operation James thinks he could easily survive.

Franco sees his expression and stops, “Sorry, just messing. I didn’t realise.” 

“I left because I got sick of diving into shit,” he snaps, but immediately relents. “And looking at corpses and talking to liars. Imagine one Vernon Oxe a week.”

Franco shudders, “Point taken.”

When he plays again he’s not hamming it up anymore but the music still makes James feel the sharp pull of home.

“Though, you are right,” he admits. It is more than he’s ever confessed to anyone. 

Franco nods, now more interested in chord progressions than any disclosures from James. “I’m a failed queer too.”

There was a marriage, James recalls, some high profile relationships with women and little in the way of rumours. But it is not such a revelation either. He has been hiding in plain sight, the seventies way.

They play together again; variations on the same melody, until Franco’s had enough and puts his guitar aside to wander off to the kitchen.

James looks at his phone to check the time and then, because it’s got to be done, swipes through the messages accumulated since he’s been away. Mostly offers to compensate him for accidents he never had. They are so insistent he starts to wonder if he’s had one so dreadful he’s forgotten about it. 

There are other messages too. From Innocent about a DI vacancy, from Innocent about the same vacancy. And a few from Lewis, who had obviously expected him back a while ago. Something about a canoe, something about a bastard canoe and a pointed enquiry as to where James has disappeared to exactly.

He should have got in touch. None of this is Lewis’ fault, not intentionally anyway. On an impulse he presses dial, imagines his name materialising on the screen of Lewis’ phone; a forbidden indulgence. It switches to voicemail and he ends the call. 

What would he have said? What could he have told him? That he’d had a holiday in Spain, got eaten alive by mosquitoes and couldn’t get a decent cup of tea anywhere south of Maidstone.

And guess where I am? I’ve been jamming with the Axe Man. He wants, as he always wanted and never could, to share it all with Lewis, to tip everything out at his feet; here have all of me.

I have walked the pilgrim pathways (sir), sheltered from their sun in country churches and slept under their bright moon. I have seen a ruined castle on the broad horizon dispatching a knight sworn to a doomed quest. I have glimpsed him in my peripheral vision, dogging my every step. I meant to go to Santiago de Compostela but got no further than O Pino, and here, sir, Robbie, whichever one you are, is why.

Franco appears in the doorway, “Do you want something to eat?”

He blinks up at him, “Sorry?”

“Food. Do you want some?”

“I don’t want to impose.”

“Come on, it’s ready.”

The kitchen is a small room down a short flight of steps at the end of the hall. A conservatory extends it into the garden and accommodates a dining table. Franco is opening a bottle of red wine.

“Its wild boar ragu, that all right? I made it yesterday but it’s still good. The tagliatelle isn’t homemade, that doesn’t keep. What? Do you think I live on tequila and mescaline?”

“It looks great, thanks.”

Franco is discussing the ragu recipe with surprising animation when he abruptly puts the bottle down and grips the edge of the counter. He seems to be fighting a sudden a wave of pain. Then he almost doubles over. James stops him before he drops to the floor and gets him to the table to sit down. 

He crouches in front of him, “Can I do anything?”

Franco shakes his head, “It’ll pass.”

James puts the wine on the table and, when Franco asks him to, finishes preparing the food.

“The doctor says there’s nothing to be done,” Franco tells him when the spasm eases enough for him to speak. “It’s a matter of weeks now. I hope you don’t think you wasted your time diving in for me, you gave me a few good years.”

“Shouldn’t you have someone here with you?”

“You’re the only one I’ve told. Sorry. I’ve asked my PR to cancel everything, I don’t want to deal with anyone.” He drinks a quick, long swallow of wine. “I’ll call Richie when I’m ready, he’s my only family.”

James finds someone else’s words on his lips. “We are but dust and shadow,” he murmurs.

“That’s it, that’s the one,” Franco says, using the table to pull himself up. “And I think it was one of our B-sides. Sorry Sarge, I feel like shit. I’m going to bed. Stay in the spare room if you want, upstairs first right, or let yourself out.”

But James hears him stop on his way up to catch his breath and get no further. He follows and helps him to his top floor bedroom. The room is large, stretching across the width of the house. It is furnished in dark wood, silver and Wedgewood blue and the walls are closely hung with art. 

“It’s like a fucking wing of the Tate,” he says, letting James ease him into an armchair. “If you see one you like take it.”

“Shall I help?” James asks.

As easily as if this is what he came to do, he helps Franco undress and get ready for bed. When he is lying down and has taken some of the tablets he sends James to find in the adjoining bathroom, he takes his hand. His skin, apart from guitar hardened fingertips, is as thin as hymn book pages. 

“Are you my guardian angel or something?” He asks.

“You sleep, I’ll be here if you need anything.”

“Will you? You don’t have to.”

“Its fine, just rest.” 

James waits out part of the night in an armchair under a melting Auerbach portrait. It might be of the man in the bed, diminishing and fading almost before his eyes. It makes him anxious for Lewis, whose heroes are becoming frail and will start to fail him.

On the dressing table there is a scallop shell. It is a receptacle for pocket coins, Cartier watches and silver rings. When James leaves five weeks later, after the funeral, it is the only thing he takes with him.

In a few hours Franco is sleeping deeply so James leaves him to spend the rest of the night in the guest room. He is woken mid-morning by the alien buzz of his phone on the bedside table. It is Lewis.

“I just saw you called,” he says, his voice warm. “I forgot the bloody thing was switched off.” 

James hears the sound of Franco’s guitar from downstairs and, in Oxford, a kettle is coming to the boil. 

“How are you?” He asks. “And Laura. How are you both?”

“We’re fine thanks, James. Is everything all right with you?”

“I’m in London. I just wanted to tell you I was back.”

“I hope you had a proper break. No rescuing orphans or what have you.”

“No orphans, no widows, honest.”

“It’s good to hear your voice, I must say.” 

“You were worried about me,” James says. “I’m sorry.”

“Aye, well, you don’t have to report your whereabouts to me anymore, do you?”

“Even so.” 

“Are we likely to see you back this way?”

There is only one answer but it takes him a moment to realise it. “There’s something I think I need to do here. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take.”

“Right, well, you’re always welcome here and if you need anything, anything at all-.”

“Thank you, that’s -, thank you.” 

They say their goodbyes and he can see Lewis in his kitchen, or no, Laura’s kitchen inspecting his phone to ensure it really is off and seeing to that cuppa, all the time wearing his ‘perplexed by Hathaway’ frown. Perhaps staying out of touch would, after all, be better for everyone.

He gets dressed and goes downstairs where he finds the house being cleaned and polished by a small army of industrious South American housekeepers, one of whom hands him a mug of coffee. Franco is oblivious to the activity going on around him. A roll-up parked in the corner of his mouth, he is on the sofa playing the Fender again. James recognises the tune they were working on yesterday.

“I’m loving your song,” Franco says. “The Ballad of Lewis and Hathaway.”

“We’re calling it that, are we?” 

“Does it have any words?”

“Absolutely not a chance.”

He stops playing to finish his smoke, “Do you fancy brunch at the Wolsley? My treat.”

“I don’t want to -.”

“You’re not imposing. It’s my pleasure. There’s an exhibition at the Royal Academy I want to catch as well, if you’re interested.”

He smiles, “Sure.”

Franco picks out the first few bars of ‘it’s a long way to Tipperary’ and says without looking up, “I could do with saying goodbye Piccadilly, farewell Leicester Square as well. I wouldn’t mind some company.”

In O Pino, James had put himself, briefly, into the care of a stranger. He understands that those in your life for no more than a passing moment can sometimes provide a safe harbour free from the complications of shared history. He can hear the machinery of fate grinding into gear. It is not a pilgrimage and it is not yet complete.

“Can I have eggs benedict?”

Franco brightens, “Sweetheart, you can have Pope Benedict if you can find him on the menu.”

***

Though a plan is never discussed, an agreement never made, James doesn’t leave. He spends Franco’s last weeks with him watching the quick, brutal progression of the cancer.

At first they walk most days. Franco gets his ‘last looks’ at old haunts, telling scandalous tales from each Soho club or Bloomsbury mansion block while James idly lists, for his entertainment, the civil and criminal laws thereby contravened.

But old London is mostly gone and Franco is soon leaning heavily on James’ arm to get no great distance. Then his world contracts to the four walls of his house.

They work on the new song together and when Franco no longer has strength to play, he doesn’t get up again.

James gradually takes over the things Franco can no longer manage. He talks to the doctors, negotiates the outside world, keeps track of multiplying medication. Sometimes all he can do is stay with him through times of discomfort or pain or simple sadness. Sometimes he is holding water to dry lips or changing sheets. 

After one or two bad nights, he gets into the habit of sleeping next to Franco. He doesn’t want to stray too far from him and Franco likes to have him close. When he is feeling strong enough, he holds James against his shoulder and rests a hand in his hair.

On one such night James has done what he can to make Franco comfortable, but he isn’t interested in sleeping, he just wants to talk.

“I can’t see you as a priest,” he says, having extracted a few highlights and low points from James’ past.

“You’re not the first to say that.”

“All the priests I ever knew were fat Irishmen banging on about miniskirts. Do you believe in it, all that business?”

“Oh good, the easy questions.”

“I had it up to here when I was a kid; Sunday mass, Saturday confession, communion, catechism, the lot.”

“Do you want a priest, Franco? I can find you one. I could probably even get you a fat Irishman.”

“I prefer to keep clear of them, thanks all the same. They don’t think much of me either, as I understand it.”

“Humans make mistakes, not God.”

“Yeah, all right, but it’s the humans ordering everyone around and where’s God? 

They keep a bedside lamp on so Franco can see his pictures. James has rearranged them so some favourites are within his line of sight. They have music playing quietly too, mostly crackling recordings of Robert Johnson and Bessie Smith; songs endlessly about death but he doesn’t want to hear anything else. Despite his professions of disbelief he seems to be anticipating the start of a journey, not approaching the end of one. 

“Did you try to be a priest because you thought you were queer?”

“Mind your own business.”

“You don’t give much away, do you, Sarge?”

“You can talk. You’re the seventies icon, and you’ll have me believe you’ve never been kissed.”

“All I did in the seventies was take drugs and have friendly chats with girls.”

“And marriages.”

“One marriage. Short. Another of Vernon’s genius ideas. George Michael did try it on once in the eighties though. What’s funny about that?”

“What happened?”

“Ran a mile.”

James eases himself up on to an elbow and the other man opens his eyes to see what’s happening. He kisses him softly. Franco smiles and pulls him back down, taking his hand.

“You and your old men.” 

“Try and sleep for a bit, if you can,” James says. He has tasted death in the kiss and urgently, irrationally wants to delay it.

“So go on,” Franco says, ignoring him. “What happened in Spain? You still owe me the anti-pilgrimage story.”

“Do I?” James’ thumb strokes the hand that has reached for his, “I’m the anti-Chaucer, now, am I? All right.” 

For a moment he wonders where to start but, really, it has to be O Pino. “I got to this little village in the late afternoon,” he begins. “I’d been walking since morning and I checked into a guest house which had a bar attached. They were playing Counter Culture Blues when I got there, by the way.”

“I like this place.”

“I waited outside and went in once the Stones came on.”

“Traitor.”

“I had a glass of wine and something to eat. And then I was talking to the barman.”

“Ah-ha. Was he seventy five years old?”

“Very funny. No, he was my about my age. His name was Gael.”

“Gail?”

“Gael, it’s a boy’s name. He asked if I wanted to go for a smoke and watch the sunset from the balcony upstairs.”

“A fast worker.”

“They have to work fast in that place because the whole world is just passing through.”

“And then?”

“We smoked. My first cigarette in two months, I could feel it burn the back of my throat. And the light, before the sun went down; it was golden, I don’t know, diaphanous. O Pino is just fields and roads and houses but it felt sanctified by this unearthly light.”

“No need for a dead saint’s bones if you’ve got that going on.”

“I suppose not. Maybe. We were in the office which was where they kept some of the stock. You would have liked it, crates of beer everywhere. We drank bottles of Estrella Galicia.”

“And then he kissed you.”

“Yes.”

“Have you got to the good bit at last?” 

Against a tower of beer. To be found and lost. To fall, to be held. To be touched, to be touched at last. And when the whole thing made him cry, Gael had wrapped him in the arm not holding a bottle, and sighed, “Inglés,” as if this explained everything.

In the gentle light of morning, over caffe con leche, with sheep registering mild complaints from a neighbouring field, he smoked another of Gael’s cigarettes and understood his journey had come to an end. When he lifted his pack on to his back, and turned to go the way he had come, Gael watched bemused and mildly offended.

“So why didn’t you finish your walk to the Cathedral?”

“I had to be back in time to meet you.”

“Ah, you’ve told me this much, why not the whole story?”

“I don’t know, honestly I don’t.”

“You hadn’t done anything wrong.”

“I know I hadn’t.”

“But you were listening to the fat Irishmen in your head, anyway.”

“Mine was Father Napolitano and he was moderately proportioned.”

“You should take me seriously, these are practically my last words.”

He lifts himself again to kiss Franco’s cheek, “It’s me I can’t take seriously.”

“You’ve got to make peace with yourself. It took me years and it was a bloody waste of a life. You’re young, follow your heart a bit.”

“My heart isn’t reliable, it can’t be trusted. I follow it and I end up lost.”

“How would you even know? Go somewhere you’re loved and needed, James, that’s all. Just promise me you won’t go off alone again, it’s no fucking good for someone like you.”

It’s not how he sees himself, he’s not even sure he’s capable of controlling himself when the impulse to shed his skin and move on takes him. So he surprises himself when his next words are, “I promise.”

***

Franco phones Richie toward the end. He drives straight down and stays. His rough kindness and good humour instantly make things easier. He calls James ‘Sunshine’ which is disconcerting and almost certainly ironic. He calls Franco ‘darling’ and sits beside the bed strumming an acoustic guitar while the two old comrades exchange war stories. 

After that there are nurses and morphine and James’ name being called endlessly in the night.

In the evening after the funeral, James sits on the doorstep of Franco’s house. Some of the old crowd are still inside and he can hear keyboard and guitar and rising voices as things start to liven up.

The fans who had congregated on the pavement during the day have drifted off leaving cellophane covered roses against the railing. The smattering of press have gone too and the street is lamp-lit and quiet. 

He is wearing one of Franco’s suits having nothing appropriate of his own for a funeral. He wants to go and change but the task seems suddenly beyond him. Even the cigarette in his hand is unlit.

James and Richie had been with Franco when he died. He had been semi-conscious for a couple of days but Richie had kissed him goodbye and sung Stormy Monday and Trouble in Mind as he passed. Then Richie had disappeared back to Oxfordshire returning only this morning with Mack and the rest of the family.

Following the instructions Franco had left, James made all the calls that needed to be made, arranged everything that needed to be arranged. And now, all services for the dead complete (and if he can just get off this step) he is going to start walking. Any direction, anywhere, until he falls off the end of earth. Who is there to know or care about a promise to a dying man?

A car draws up, parking in a recently vacated space across the road. He watches it with vague interest. It has been a day of comings and goings, of Moody Blues and Led Zeppelins, of Genesis and Yes, a sticker book of seventies survivors and guitar heroes.

But this time it is Robbie Lewis who gets out of the car and the sight of him feels more like a hallucination than all the Ron Woods and Robert Plants put together. 

“Richie Maguire phoned me this afternoon,” Lewis says, settling himself on the step next to James.

“Richie did?” And that would explain the bit of phone borrowing business. 

“He said I should come and get my boy. I take it that’s you.”

“You’ve come for me?” 

“If that’s what you want.”

He finds he is nodding, “Yes.” 

“Richie told me you were the only one Franco would have near him at the end.”

It must be something in his eyes or in his crumbling expression that Lewis sees because he falls silent. Until James has drawn strength from the shoulder pressed against his own. 

“I told him; that man never did know how to take a holiday.”

James smiles, “I’m sorry not to have helped you with your canoe.”

“Don’t worry, you still can.”

A place in the world, a tarnished flag to mark the spot, an undertaking honoured.

“Let’s get your things together, shall we?” 

In the car, on the way back to Oxford James takes out his phone. A piece of music is recorded, the file discreetly named Ballad. “I’ve a song to play you,” he says. 

End

 

December 2014


End file.
